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l)'aw1 SPEECH 



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HON. REUBEN DAVIS, OF MISSISSIPPI, 



ON T,^n->--T'\ 

Weet. Efto. Htefe. Boo, 



THE STATE OF THE UNION; 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRE SENT AT I V ES, D ECEMBER 22, 1 858 , 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE 

1858. 



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SPEECH. 



Tiie House lieiiig in liie C(>in:iii!tec ai' tlie Wiiolc on the 
state ol" tlio Union — 

Mr. DAVIS, of Mississippi, said: 
Mr. Chairman': The woild had arrived at a 
new era. An adventurer had gone forth a)id 
di.-3covcred a new continent. It had been peopled; 
generations had been born and passed away. 
The heroes of the Revokuion are in possession of 
tlie country. As a race, they had no parallel in 
ancient or modern times. From their cradle 
they iiad looked out upon the noble forests and 
lofty mouiUains which surrounded them, and in 
their infant minds the i^rand and sublime had 
been awakened; they had stood upon the banks 
of our mighty rivers, and gazed on their waters 
rapidly dashing on in freedom to old ocean; 
they had seen tlie noble eagle leave his mount- 
ain home, floating in blue ether, and heard his 
wild scream of liberty; and from these they had 
caught the inspiration of freedom, and its love 
had become a part of their nature. In the enjoy- 
ment of their political rights they felt the op- 
pressive hand of British dominion, and with the 
sword they severed the tie of dependence, and 
established this Republic; the Constitution under 
which we live is adopted, and we rapidly pass 
from an infant and feeble state, to our present im- 
portant position amidst the nations of the earth. 
It is now announced in the Senate Chamber 
" that the question of slavery in the Federal Ter- 
ritories involves a dynastical struggle of two an- 
tagonistical systems, the labor of slaves and the 
labor of freemen, for the mastery in the Federal 
Union." This, sir, is but another mode of ex- 
pressing the sectional controversy which has so 
long existed between the free and slave States of 
this Union, and which, if not arrested, must com- 
mence its tiecline and ultimate overthrow. The 
word " dynastical," in the use made of it in the 
above quotation, gives to each system the import- 
ance of sovcreingty-rule-line of kings. Thus we 
are told two distinct systems — two distinct Gov- 
ernments, sovereignties opposite in interests, op- 
posite in pursuit, antagonistical — exist upon this 



continent, and now struggle for superiority, for 
mastery in the Federal Union. This assertion is 
important, if true, and ougiit tt) be rendered in- 
telligible to the whole American people, because 
if such an antagonism does naturally and neces- 
sarily exist, the one or the other section of the 
Union must become a conquered province, and 
rendered subservient and subordinate. 

Now, in a subsequent portion of my remarks, 
I shall endeavor to show that no such antagonism 
exists between free and slave labor on this con- 
tinent as the announcement implies; yet for the 
present — it having been asserted by the ackno%Vi- 
edged leader of the free-labor system — I must 
examine its purport. The object of this Govern- 
ment was to advance the common good of all the 
States, and notJ,o unite under one Government 
two discordai^felements, the one to be corrected 
by the other. If, after seventy years, it is now- 
discovered that such antagonism of systems does 
exist, it only affords a reason for a dissolution of 
the Union, which must take place the very mo- 
ment our people are fully convinced of the exist- 
ence of this necessity. I regret, Mr. Chairman, 
that the distinguished Senator who gave utterance 
to this expression, had not afforded the country 
evidence of its truth. I deny any antagonpsm 
which justifies the struggle at this time existing 
between the free and slave States. The struggle 
is one of aggression and resistance, waged in vio- 
lation of the constitutional compact; and is incited 
by a spirit of avarice and injustice. 

The first object of the struggl^as been, and is, 
to deprive the people of the sl^b States of any 
interest in acquired territory, and thus prevent 
their expansion. This looks chiefly to a limita- 
tion of their political power. In such a contest 
as this there is no necessary or natural antag^- 
onism between systems of labor; it is the off- 
spring of injustice. And the spirit which induces 
it will not be satisfied with the mere possession 
of power; it has a more important aim beyond. 
It either intends the emancipation of the slaves, 
or the enforcement of a system of revenue which 
will oppress slave labor and enrich capital. If 



either or both these objects enter into the strug- 
gle, when all its objects are violative of the con- 
stitutional compact, and absolve the States from 
allegiance to the Federal Union. 

Before I advance further in my remarks, to a 
proper apprehension of my views, it is necessary 
to examine the true nature of our Federal Gov- 
ernment and the relation of the States to it. It 
was created by the States by the advice and with 
the consent of their people, and is the act of State 
sovereignty. Its powers embrace only subjects 
of a general nature, and such as appertain to the 
relations between the States of the Union, and of 
this with foreign Governments, while all that re- 
lates to the civil rights of our people is reserved 
to the States respectively. It acts upon measures 
only which relate to sovereign States, and not to 
individual citizens. It is a league, a compact 
between the States, and not a union, as contended 
for by many of our ablest statesmen. 

The first contract between the States, after the 
commencement of the Revolution, was only a 
league — an alliance. And to strengthen which, the 
convention was called wliich framed our present 
Constitution; and that convention referred that 
Constitution to the States, and not to the people 
of the Union, for ratification. They could have 
made no other disposition of it. If they had 
referred it to the people to approve or reject, it 
would have been an invitation to high treason 
against the States. The people of the States could 
do nothing towards forming an alliance or union 
without the permission of the State, and only 
then through the State as the sovereign. Each 
State was a separate and distinct sovereignty — 
complete, full, and perfect; and the people wlio 
resided therein were her citizens, and due her, 
individually, allegiance. Had they attempted to 
take from the State of which they were citizens 
any portion of its sovereignty, to be transferred 
to another Government, they would have been in 
rebellion to the State, and punishable as traitors. 
The people, then, without an act of revolution, 
could not have transferred one particle of the sov- 
ereignty of the State to the present Government. 
Nor could the States have done it without the 
consent of the people. 

No Government can transfer one or all of its 
citizens to another State without his or their con- 
sent. And in the act of forming our present Fed- 
eral Government, it required the concurring con- 
sent oS each State and its citizens; and as an 
evidence that the Congress which proposed the 
convention so regarded it, the proposition was 
submitted to the States, and not the people as 
such. The States, feeling that they had no power 
to part with a portion of the sovereignty vested 
in tliem, consulted the people in regard to doing 
it, and obtained their consent. The States, then, 
having created the Federal Government, stand 
between it and its citizens; and in all questions 
involving the exercise of political power by the 
Federal Government over the citizen, is the ar- 
biter, and it is her duty to decide how far she 
surrendered sovereignty to the Federal Govern- 
ment; and that decision is final. This leads 
me to the conclusion that the States covenanted 
with each other, and that the Federal Union is 
the result of that covenant. Each of the States 
having surrendered an equal amount of sover- 
eignty for the common good of all, the residue 



and most essential portion each retained. All that 
which appertains especially to our domestic in- 
terests and rights to property, is reserved to them. 
They alone have power over questions relating 
to property, to personal security, religion, the 
elective franchise, and such other subjects as their * 
citizens have an immediate interest in. On the 
other hand , the powers of the Federal Government 
extend to measures, not people — to great ques- 
tions of public and national policy. 

Now, this being the true nature of our Govern- 
ment, whence comes the authority for a majority 
of States to combine, and force upon the minority 
a system which oppresses them, although it may 
increase the wealth of that majority ? If there is 
no such right, why make the Federal Government 
a party to this dynastical struggle between the 
two antagoiiistical systems of labor? And I may 
ask what she can do in this controversy.' What 
right h^ she to interfere in a contest between the 
slave-labor system of Mississippi and free labor 
of Massachusetts ? and why does Massachusetts 
invoke her aid? Has she the power to emanci- 
pate the slave? I answer, no ! The question of 
what shall and what shall not be property is one 
for the decision of sovereignty, and is one of the 
powers reserved to the States, and does not apper- 
tain to the Federal Government; and any effort 
by her to exercise it would be a positive usurpa- 
tion of power which would absolve the States 
from their allegiance. The general welfare would 
not authorize it. 

But if, sir, by a usurpation of power this Gov- 
ernment shall hereafter make herself a party to 
this supposed struggle, and in disregard of the 
rights of the States" deprive their people of this 
slave property, v^'hat would belts effects upon the 
present and future of this great country and the 
world? You would strike down three million 
of laborers now engaged in the cultivation of the 
soil, thereby reducing the productive wealth of 
the nation not less than two billion dollars, and 
render idle three billion more of real estate and 
agricultural implements. The sudden destruc- 
tion of this vast sum would produce a shock 
from which the monetary affairs of the world 
v/ould not recover in the next five hundred years. 
It is the products of the labor engaged in the cul- 
tivation of the soil that adds permanently to the 
general wealth of a nation, and gives prosperity 
to her people. Now, render inoperative and un- 
productive this five billion of land and labor, the 
real productive wealth of the nation, and your 
prosperity which now culminates at its zenith will 
be turned back to the horizon to linger in feeble- 
ness, and ultimately be overcast in the darkness 
of anarchy. Thus reduce the annual products of 
this country, and the millions of money which it 
has heretofore attracted and now attracts, for in- 
vestment, would seek other lands and other climes 
more congenial to its wants. 

Mr. Chairman, there is now brought into this 
country, from the States of Europe, more than 
two hundred million dollars annually to be in- 
vested in agricultural products; and this vast sum 
is an addition to the wealth of this nation; and is 
that, sir, which gives life and activity to com- 
merce, and dilTuses a wide-spread prosperity 
which enters into all the pursuits of our people, 
and is enjoyed by the industrious and energetic 
alike. Destroy, then, and render idle this vast 



amount of property, and this sum will cease to 
come here; will find other marts for investment; 
and where now flows a golden stream of riches will 
be seen stagnation and poverty. I will not, to- 
day, undertake a review of the commercial con- 
dition of the world up to the period of the intro- 
duction of slave labor into this country, and the 
production of cotton by it. It is sufficient for 
my purpose to say, that industry, the mechanic 
arts, commerce, civil and religious liberty, have 
advanced with a rapidity which startles the con- 
templation; destroy it, and the reaction will equal 
the advance, and the dark ages will be restored. 

The operatives in the free States, who depend 
upon their daily labor to procure the means for 
the support of their families, would be left with- 
out employment, and would see their country re- 
duced to a state of ruin which no imagination can 
portray. If gentlemen imagine that this dark pic- 
ture can be avoided by the introduction into the 
rice, cotton, and sugar regions of the South of fre-e 
white laborers, or by a regrganization of the Af- 
rican emancipated labor, they are mistaken. The 
African can only be made to labor as a slave, and 
under compulsory power. The white man never 
has performed, and never will perform, the labor 
necessary to the successful development of tropical 
regions. But suppose you could successfully re- 
organize a system of labor suited to the cultivation 
of rice, sugar, and cotton: it would require time, 
during which, so deep would become the ruin of 
this country, that it would require many gener- 
ations before the shock could be recovered from. 
Suppose the present annual products of slave labor 
should be stopped for five years: your spindles, 
which, as an item of national and individual weal tii, 
equal $1,000,000,000,000, would be forever de- 
stroyed, and those now in their employ left with- 
out bread. In the destruction of agriculture and 
manufactures, commercial prosperity would be 
involved; and then would set in a dark, long, 
dark night, upon our common country. 

Thus I have shown that, by the emancipation 
of the slave, the accumulation of national wealth 
which has so successfully progressed in this coun- 
try would be arrested, and national bankruptcy 
produced. In this condition of the country no one 
is benefited, and especially the poor or the labor- 
ers; because in national, not individual, wealth, 
does the interest of the poor lie. National wealth 
falls upon all classes, like the dews of heaven, alike ; 
while individual wealth is the cold, sordid, mi- 
serly tyrant, that demands the letter of the bond, 
although it exacts the last drop of blood. 
• I have thus far, Mr. Chairman, considered this 
question in its effects upon national prosperity. I 
have not, and shall not, to-day examine its imme- 
diate operation upon individual interest, or the 
section of the Union to which I belong. Enough, 
in times past, has been ifioken and written on 
that subject. I leave the friends of this meafjure 
to consult their own hearts, and then afford the 
answer. It will tell them that seas of blood, an 
era of anarchy, a disorganization of society, and 
a rending of the Government, like the oak by the 
lightning bolt, must be the consequences. 

But many tell me this is not the aim of the 
struggle. Then, I ask, what is it r Certainly no 
great contest like thiscan commence and continue, 
shaking a great country to its foundation, having 
no motive. The fraternal feeling of this numerous 



and mighty people ought not to be causelessly 
riven and rent. It is the consummation of wickecl- 
ness to excite in the minds of thirty million free- 
men a storm luighticr than the winds of heaven, 
for no other purpose than to hear its wild wailing, 
and to behold the grandeur and sublimity of its 
terrific sweepings. And he who would do it de- 
serves the maledictions of earth and the vengeance 
of heaven. If this is not the motive, then assert 
it, that the quiet calm of civilization and religion 
may be restored to the South, and the fiery breath 
of fanaticism exlinguished in the North. But, 
sir, it is untrue that this struggle is without mo- 
tive; it may not be the same with all, but it has a 
motive. With some it is, doubtless, the eman- 
cipation of the slave. With others it is the de- 
struction of the equilibrium in the political power 
of the two sections of the Union, and the concen- 
tration in the hands of the free States the bal- 
ance, to be used in inflicting upon the slave States, 
by legislative aid, a system too oppressive to be 
endured; a system alike oppressive upon every 
branch of industrial labor; a system which must 
place at least the agricultural industry of this 
country at the mercy of every other pursuit in 
which civilized man is engaged — the chief meas- 
ure of which system is the tariff, falsely denom- 
inated protection of American labor, but truly the 
fosterer of individual capital. 

Mr. Chairman, I shall not to-day, in the con- 
sideration of this suliject, enter into detail and 
show by statistics the true effects of a jirotective 
tariff upon the industry of the people of this coun- 
try. I shall content myself with a general view 
of it. It is a system of bonuses; and that bonus 
inures to the capitalist, and not the laborer — 
augments individual wealth and does not reward 
individual toil. It proposes to keep down the 
competition of European capital, not European 
labor. The true interest of labor is to increase 
the competition of capital, so as therel^ to in- 
crease the profits of labor. A protective tariff 
has not this effect. The assertion that it does is 
merely plausible, not real. It is not so much the 
price of labor which gives individual prosperity, 
as it is the cheapness of consumption. High 
wages is always consumed by high consumption; 
and to render consumption cheap, we should have 
the whole world for a market. 

You impose, sir, a duty of fifty per cent, upon 
an article imported into this country from a for- 
eign State. This sum must be paid by the con- 
sumer, and that consumer is the laborer, as well 
as any one else. Who, then, gets the advantage 
of this fifty per cent.? It is the capitalist engaged 
in the production of that particular article, and 
the consumption of that article costs the capitalist 
less by fifty per cent, than it costs others. This 
assertion requires explanation ; it is easily afforded: 
A invests $100,000 in an establishment for the 
manufacture of cotton goods; he employs labor- 
ers — does not own them; he pays wages. The 
labor thus employed costs §100,000, and it pro- 
duces $100,000 of fabric. The laborer has been 
paid. Now, by the aid of the tariff, the capitalist is 
enabled to add fifty per cent, to this $100,000 of fab- 
ric, making its consumable value $150,000. Now, 
who gets the benefit of the $50,000 thus added? 
Not the laborer; his wages are not increased; he 
has received his wages before this addition is made. 
It is the capitalist. Who is injured.' The laborer; 



because he must consume, and consume a portion 
of this very fabric, and is compelled to pay this 
fifty per cent, without ^any increase in the utility 
of the article since it came from his hands; be- 
cause this fifty per cent, does not increase the util- 
ity of the article, but only its cor.sumable value 

But suppose you tell me that the capitalist, by 
having the power to add this fifty per cent., is 
enabled thereby to increase the wages of the la- 
borer: still the increase in the consumable value 
is far greater than in the wage% and the laborer 
is injured. The capitalist himself is benefited in 
another way; he consumes at the cost of making 
the fabric, and not at its consumable price. The 
argument might hold good if, in every instance, 
she laborer was also the capitalist; but even then 
the law would be unjust, because it would enable 
the laborer in this particular branch of industry 
to impose this burden of fifty per cent, upon every 
other branch of industry, and especially upon 
agriculture, which, from its very nature, cannot 
procure from legislation similar aids. The true 
value of every fabric is the cost of material and 
price of labor, and that should be its consumable 
value. But the tariff" enables you to increase its 
market value fifty per cent., which is a burden 
upon consumption, for individual benefit, and, to 
the extent of the duty imposed, diminishes con- 
sumption, and thereby lessens the value of labor. 

The proposition that a tax imposed upon an 
article of consumption increases its market price 
to that extent, will not, I apprehend, be denied. 
If, then, the market price is increased, it will re- 
quire a much larger amount of labor to obtain it; 
v/hich necessarily diminishes the consumption, 
or increases the price of labor. If it diminishes 
the consumption, it will prejudice those engaged 
in that branch of labor, because less labor will be 
required to supply the demand;and whenever de- 
mand iadiminished , of course labor must cheapen , 
because of the competition produced by a surplus 
number of hands. To illustrate: the price of cot- 
ton fabric has been increased fifty per cent, by the 
aid of a duty imposed by the Government in its 
favor; of course, with the same amount of money 
I must purchase a third less, and as the consump- 
tion has been diminished one third, the demand 
for labor must be diminished in a like proportion; 
and thus competition is increased, and thus labor 
is cheapened, and the whole benefit inures to the 
capitalist. 

But suppose you deny this position, and as- 
sume that the price of labor will be increased, 
because the capitalists will be able to pay higher 
rates: I will show the assumption to be founded 
in error; firsts because it is not the nature of cap- 
ital to pay more than it is compelled; and, sec- 
ondly, because, although his profits would be 
greater upon what he sold, yet he would sell so 
much less that there would be no inducement to 
increase wages, as competition would keep it 
down. 

But again: suppose the price of labor in that 
branch of industry should be increased: would it 
result to the benefit of the laborer? I think not. 
The laborer must consume, and is interested in 
cheap consumption; and if you increase the price 
of consumption one third, and labor one third, it 
would be the same in its results, as if both re- 
mained at the lower rates. 

I think, Mr. Chairman, I have shown that the 



common day -laborer] at the North is not bene- 
fited; if not, I shall certainly show that the land- 
owner from one end of this continent to the other 
is deeply injured. Now, buying and selling is 
but an exchange of commodities, and no one 
is able to continue long to buy who creates 
nothing. Now, when you increase the cost of 
consumption, you either diminish the amount 
used, or require a much larger amount in ex- 
change for it. This diminishes the value of the 
articles given in exchange; and of course dimin- 
ishes the profits of labor, and of course the price 
of labor. This diminution must extend to the 
landlord, who consumes fabric and creates raw 
material. I confess, if the laborer worked for 
himself, and owned the fabric when made, the 
duty imposed would then enhance the profits of 
his labor; but that is not the effect when the capi- 
talist is the owner of the fabric. I confess, also, 
that if the farmer who owns and works his own 
land could impose a duty of twenty-five per cent, 
upon the raw material, his profits, too, would be 
increased; but this he cannot do, and consequently 
he is oppressed by the operation of the rule. 

To be a little more specific: take the States of 
Massachusetts and Mississippi. The one man- 
ufactures, the other cultivates the soil. The one 
creates fabric, the other raw material. Tlie farmer 
of Mississippi needs forconsumption such fabrics 
as Massachusetts produces; but he can obtain the 
same article from the English manufacturer. The 
Englishman proposes to sell agiven quantity of his 
fabric to the iMississippi farmer for §100, and will 
take the farmer's agricultural products in exchange 
at a given price. The Massachusetts manufacturer 
cannot afford to take less than |150 for the same 
amount of the same fabric, and is only willing to 
allow the same price for the farmer's products. 
The Government interposes in favor of the Mas- 
sachusetts vendor, and against the farmer; re- 
quires the English vendor to pay fifty per cent, 
duty before he is allowed to offer his article. This 
compels him to increase the price of his article 
fifty per cent., and the farmer to take it at that 
price. It is a tax on the farmer of fifty per cent.; 
and transfers from Mississippi to Massachusetts 
one third of the labor of the farmer without con- 
sideration, by increasing the consumable value of 
the article purchased. 

Thus, it will be seen that no class of laborers 
is benefited. Then, who is? I repeat again, 
capital. And this, sir, brings me back to the 
proposition asserted by me, in my opening re- 
marks, that there was no conflict between the twq^ 
systems of labor. They are dependent upon each 
other, and mutually contribute to produce the 
greatest national prosperity. Antagonism can 
only exist where the labor is the same, and then 
only because of a supeftibundance. If there were 
more capital and labor engaged in the production 
of iron than the consumption demanded, there 
would then be antagonism. So in the manu- 
facture of cotton goods. But between free and 
slave labor no such antagonism can exist. It is 
differently employed. The highest prosperity of 
the one has its dependence upon the other. Slave 
labor, everywhere, is confined to the cultivation 
of the soil, and limited to the production of cot- 
ton, rice, sugar, tobacco, hemp, and breadstuffa; 
and these are the very articles upon which free 
labor depends for success. What would your 



cotton factories? do without slave labor? The his- ' 
lory of the world shows that cotton has never been 
successfully raised where slave labor did not 
exist. And what would they do without sugar, ' 
breadstufls, &c.? Slave labor is peculiarly suited 
to agriculture, and especially in tropical climates; 
while commerce, navigation, and the meclianic 
arts, require a higher degree of intelligence, pos- 
sessed only by the white man. 

From the triumphs and perfection of agriculture ! 
these latter pursuits derive their success, and let ' 
it be impaired or destroyed, and they will sink l 
into ruin and decay. The true interest of each [ 
system of labor demands that the disproportion ' 
between them should not be too great, and espe- 
cially in favor of free labor, since that, deriving ! 
its prosperity from slave labor, will become ag- , 
gressive, as it has been from the foundation of 
the Government. A commerce is carried on be- 
tween them by an exchange of commodities, thus 
enabling the votaries of each to obtain the neces- \ 
saries as well as the luxuries of life. Thus it will 
be seen that the two systems are dependent, and 
not antagonistical. The argument has its exist- 
ence in an ingenious device originating with cap- 
ital, which is waging an eternal war upon labor, 
in every form and in every clime; intruding its . 
hideous avarice into all the pursuits of men, 
robbing them of the profits of their labor. ; 

The antagonism is between capital and labor, ' 
both free and slave; between which it would in- 
duce a conflict to advance its profits. Its constant 
cry is cheap labor and dear consumption. It keeps 
labor at the lowest possible ebb, while it demands 
the highest rates for all it sells. Thus it has been 
in all ages of the world. When, since society 
existed in a distinct form, have we not had com- ■ 
binations of capital, with a view to concentrating 
a controlling colossal power to be used in making 
the rich richer and the poor poorer? When, in 
years of scarcity, has it not been used to purchase 
the entire provisions of the country, and then de- 1 
mand prices so exorbitant as to put it beyond the 
means of the laborer, leaving him and his family i 
to suffer with hunger? Who now are the cham- ' 
pions of this struggle? It is those engaged in the 
service of capitalists. Who originated capitalists ? 
Men engaged in class pursuits, and who now de- 
mand, and have been demanding for so many 
years past, protection for their capital against 
labor. Protection which will enable them to rob 
labor; and when they had failed to effect this by 
argument, when they discovered there was intel- ; 
ligence in this country to detect the error in their 
argument, and that our people refused to be 
misled by them, they changed their tactics, and 
assailed the prejudices of tlie human heart, by 
presenting, in an aggravated and false form, the 
condition of the slave, and appealed in favor of 
his right to be free and equal with the white 
man. 

Thus the fanaticism of the whole North was 
awakened into action, and when they discovered 
this Government shakened to its foundation, and 
the Union in danger, they liave ingeniously di- 
verted the direction of the storm, and now say 
they are not for emancipation; but announce an ] 
antagonism in the two systems. It is due to truth ' 
and candor that they shall make known their real 
object. If it is true there is antagonism, they 
do intend emancipation; because that is the only [ 



mode of terminating it. If it is true that they are 
not for emancipation, then it is an admission there 
is no antagonism; and, if no antagonism, the ob- 
ject of this storm, which they are getting up, is 
to enable capital so to use the Government as to 
enslave the white as well as the black man. And 
now, I ask, will the laborers of the North lend 
tiiemselves to this foul fraud, and ripen in| 3 suc- 
cess this despicable conspiracy against tlicir in- 
terest ? I ask the people South if they would not 
prefer to see this Union dissevered tiian endure 
the operation of a system which is to transfer, as 
I have shown, the one fourth of th6 net proceeds 
of their labor to northern capitalists annually. 

I repeat, Mr. Cliairman, this is a contest be- 
tween capital and labor — a contest of power against 
weakness; a contest in which the pride of the 
freemen of this country is to be humbled and their 
spirits broken, until they will consent to any deg- 
radation, even serfdom; and from this, Mr. Chair- 
man, if our people desire to escape, they must 
stand by the Democratic organization , and thereby 
perpetuate the great doctrine of limitation on the 
powers of the Federal Government, and the abso- 
lute right of the States to legislate alone upon 
subjects which concern their domestic and civil 
rights — doctrines which leave the people of each 
State with the full and undivided right to pass for 
themselves laws suited to their climate,'soil, and 
industrial pursuits. 

The perpetuation of the nationality of that 
party with its principles, leaves every branch f 
industry free to pursue its own course of policy, 
and compels it to stand upon its own inherent 
merits. In its long and brilliant course of tri- 
umphs on this continent, it has given no cause of 
complaint to our people; its career has been un- 
felt, oppressively. Ithas discouraged sectionalism 
and discountenanced class legislation. Against 
it all class interest have combined and wage war 
of extermination; not because the party had done 
too much; not because the party had used the 
power of the Government to advance one inter- 
I est at the sacrifice of another; but because it had 
refused to do this — not because it had used the 
power of the Government to interfere with the 
domestic interest of the people of the different 
States, but because it had refused to do it; not 
because it granted monopolies and gave bounties, 
but because it had declared that these powers 
did not belong to the Government; not because 
it had not vindicated the honor and" glory of the 
nation, when assailed, but because sensitive to 
national honor it had resented national wrongs; 
not because it had not used all honorable means to 
extend our dominion and propagate our free insti- 
; tutions, but because this it had done; not because 
' it had used the power of the Government to pre- 
I vent the full development of the various sources 
of wealth and the various branches of industry 
' of our country — our whole country, this it had 
i done, and we see it in the facts that to-day our 
' people are the happiest on earth, the freest on 
earth, and prosperous beyond all parallel in the 
past or present history of the world. Nowhere 
else is wealth so generally diffused amongst all 
classes, and industry so unrestrained and unre- 
stricted as here. And now, at this point of ex- 
alted prosperity, capital has excited this storm 
which appals tlie heart of our people for the fu- 
ture of our country; and amidst the conflicting 



8 



elements our only hope to arrest the storm and 
save the country from ruin and anarchy is the 
Democratic organization. Let it go down, and 
disorder and carnage and anarchy and despotism 
must result. The free-labor system having ob- 
tained possession of the Government, will bring 
all its powers to their aid; and that which is now 
denominated a struggle becomes a conflict which 
must be settled by the sword, unless the slave- 
labor system consents ignobly to yield to the dom- 
inant party. Will they'do it, Mr. Chairman .' Do 
you believe thfey will ? Does any man here to-day 
believe they will.' I tell you, no ! Look you at 
the breathless quiet which rests upon the whole 
slave region. Do you apprehend it? It is the 



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who know 
II tain them, 
. now being 
onstitution- 
trample the 
usurpation. 
I itense inter- 
est, but uauiiwu.... „. " ' ^ his struggle 
must be ended and sectional strife terminated. As 
long as the Democratic party is continued in the 
I ascendant, it will be kept in check, and when that 
I party shall fall, the sword must and will do its 
jt work. Let justice direct our councils, and amidst 
!! the crumblings of European thrones we will re- 
[i main a unit and a pride — happy and free. 



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